#jo pearson

[goldentortoise]

Strangford, "Snoot"

Riso print based on an original hand carved linocut 15cm x 15cm 250gsm paper

[newsatsix1986]

This is Dale Jennings, reporting to you all for News At Six from 1989! 🌟💖📺

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As all of my readers know, I love researching the real history behind The Newsreader! So when the Season Three trailer gave us our first glimpse of the brand new News At Six news desk for 1989, you can imagine how itchy I felt to start investigating to find the real news desk from the era that inspired it!

Season One’s was based off Ten’s Eyewitness News from 1986 (as seen in these pics of Melbourne’s Jo Pearson and David Johnston), Season Two’s was based off Seven’s Nightly News set from circa 1988 (anchored by Jennifer Keyte and Glenn Taylor in Melbourne), and for Season Three, we are seeming to return back to the designs of Seven Nightly News, this time their 1989 set. It bears some similarities to the 1988 set, except with a futuristic silver, blue and chrome tone.

For historical reference and evidence, I’m including these images from Brisbane and Melbourne’s Seven Nightly News, both from 1989. These feature Brisbane’s newsreaders of Kay McGrath and Frank Warrick (with sports reporter Peter Meares), and Melbourne’s team of Jennifer Keyte and Glenn Taylor.

From the tiny amount we’ve seen of our Season Three desk, our desk is sans the computer monitors in the background, and from the positioning of the lights above, we can assume we will have that row of screens running across the top, like Channel Seven’s. We also have a pronounced and rounded screen on the side so that Dale can watch crossovers and do satellite interviews, although it’s possible the real deal did too, I’ve just not been able to find footage supporting this to share as evidence.

We are lucky to have these images and footage due to the preservation work of professional and unofficial archivists on the internet, and so if you would like to watch the clips sourced to support their work, you can search the titles and users below. A big thank you to these users for preserving and sharing these pieces of Australian media history! Which news desk from The Newsreader has been your favourite?

Sourced Videos:

‘ATV-10 Eyewitness News, Thursday March 27 1986 - Russell Street Bombing’ - OldNewsAUS from YouTube (uploaded 7/02/2014)

‘1988 Seven Nightly News Launch - Melbourne’ 18/01/1988 - Andrew Heslop from YouTube (uploaded 10/09/2023)

‘BTQ7 Seven Nightly News Opener/Closer 15/5/1989’ - Dan Martin from YouTube (uploaded 20/03/2020)

‘Seven Nightly News Australia (HSV7 Melbourne) Sept 29 1989’ - Australian Television Archive from YouTube (uploaded 8/03/2016)

[no-more-mr-niceguy]

Jo Pearson for 'Naked with Masks' by Ben Hopper (2018)

Jo Pearson for 'Naked with Masks' Mask by Maskadelic. Hackney Wick, London, UK (May 2018).

[goldentortoise]

Strangford, Reptile Dysfunction (nd)

Hand carved five layer reduction woodcut Printed in oil based ink on 70 x 50cm

[goldentortoise]

Strangford, "Siesta"

Linocut of a big old sleepy viscacha Printed in deep blue oil-based ink with acrylic paint pink whiskers 36cm x 53cm (ish) 150gsm print making paper

[magica-pseudoacademica]

The witch hunt ... becomes "an imaginative creation, like all historical vents", but one that is "owned" by modern witches with an imaginative link to those persecuted and executed as witches in the past in an attempt to truly experience, or even recreate that past. Thus, whilst no modern witch wants to relive or re-create a time of persecution (though there is great awareness of persecutions which pertain to this day), there is an effort to construct the witch as a figure of alterity that can then be mapped on to the self-marginalisation of contemporaries seeking the kudos of radicalism and rebellion. Participating in this construction of identity and taking some control of representations with little concern for "reality" aids in the reclamation of the power of the witch of the past in the present, aided by the ambiguities of postmodernism.

Jo Pearson, “Writing Witchcraft: The Historians’ History, the Practitioners’ Past” in Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Historiography (2007)